[2022-02-16] Human library
In 2014, while with Natural Resources Canada, I organized a human library with a team of collaborators.
A human library is an event in which people who are willing to share their story (the books) meet one-on-one with people who want to know more about their experience (the borrowers of the books).
We took inspiration for our event from the Ottawa Public Library, which had held a human library in 2013. The human books on the library's shelf included a drag queen, a sex worker and a former compulsive gambler.
Among the people who agreed to serve as books for the NRCan event were an Indigenous person, a woman who had experienced burnout, and a man who was gay.
I had an opportunity to check out two books: a woman born with cerebral palsy and a man who had stuttered as a child. The conversations were fascinating. Because the volunteers had already shared part of their story through the blurbs they had written to summarize their reality, I felt comfortable launching right into the conversation, asking April about cerebral palsy and John about stuttering.
The discussions were so much better than simply reading a book. I could interact with the storytellers: ask them questions, reveal a few of my own experiences, and learn about aspects of their lives that weren’t part of the story they had shared to promote the event.
I was reminded of something philosopher Roman Krznaric shared in his excellent whiteboard animation on empathy: "Highly empathic people tend to be very sensitive listeners…. They tend to also be people who, in conversations, share part of their own lives, make conversations two-way dialogues, make themselves vulnerable."
In my reading with John, I talked about my own struggle to speak after having what was originally thought to have been a stroke but was later diagnosed as a migraine with complications.
I wasn’t the only one to have been deeply affected by the experience of participating in the human library. Like me, other borrowers were moved by the conversations, describing the event as eye-opening, engaging and rewarding, and an opportunity to talk with someone on a very personal level about the challenges they had faced. The volunteers were also affected. One human book told me that he had received more than he had given and that he believed that some of the readers simply needed someone to listen to them.
Human libraries became popular in the federal public service after our event. I participated in a couple of human libraries as a book, having face-to-face conversations with a few borrowers. It was rewarding to be able to share my story and to see the impact it had on the people with whom I met.
I hope that human libraries or similar events will make a comeback post-pandemic. Walking a mile in another person’s shoes builds empathy. And empathy builds compassion—two things that we need more than ever.
